Woodsville
Strategic Facilities Committee Chairman Wayne Fortier said the volunteer panel has been evaluating the district’s buildings for three years to see if there are any cost-savings to be had while improving educational opportunities, safety and security.
“We think that the Woodsville Elementary School is tight for space,” Fortier said. “It is probably the better piece of real estate that the school district could get rid of if it had to — though we’re not zoned for commerical, it’s near commerical entities nearby.”
The recommendation — the nine options studied were narrowed to three finalists — was recently presented to the School Board, which will have the final say on what to present to voters.
Fortier said the meeting at Haverhill Cooperative Middle School at 6:30 tonight, while open to the public, will serve primarily as a workshop between School Board members and the committee.
Another meeting geared toward gathering public input is scheduled for the same location on Sept. 16.
The elementary school was built in 1962 at the intersection of routes 10 and 302. Under the committee’s proposal, a “major addition” would be needed at Haverhill Cooperative Middle School, located six miles away in North Haverhill. The middle school would then take in the pre-Kindergarten through grade 3 students currently educated at the elementary school, according to Fortier and committee meeting minutes from June.
Additionally under this option, the scope of work proposed for the district’s high school, Woodsville High, located less than a mile from the elementary school, would range from “only the most immediate building needs to major renovation and additions.”
Because of the variability concerning the high school, Fortier said, it was difficult to put an estimate on costs this early in the discussions. A rough estimate, he said, could be a bond in the ballpark of $8 to $12 million.
The committee has found that taxpayers may have to spend some money in the near term to save in the long term, he said.
Fortier cautioned that any proposal needed to be reasonable, which led the committee to discount the option to move students to a single campus because of a hefty price tag.
Fortier said reducing the district’s campuses could result in cost savings by being “administratively efficient.”
School Administrative Unit 23 Superintendent Laurie Melanson, who said she has not yet taken a stance on the recommendation, said savings could come in the long term by renovating the aging facilities so that they don’t fall into further disrepair — especially the high school, which dates back to the late 1800s and which she said “definitely needs some work” — and efficiencies in other line items, such as food service, maintenance, repairs and buildings and grounds.
She said cost-savings could also come from combining administrative staff and potentially other personnel. When asked about teachers, she said the district would “have to cross that bridge when we get to it, but we would cross it,” noting that the number of teachers depends on several variables including enrollment and recommended class sizes.
“(Tonight) they hope to have some real estimates for the projects,” Melanson said, “so they’re looking to see how much this is projected to cost and they know that they need to do something to economize, to reduce duplication of services and to make the best use of the dollars.”
Currently, the middle school teaches grades 4-8. Melanson said there are roughly 225 students enrolled for the upcoming school year.
Twenty teachers are listed on the middle school website for grades four through eight, including three special education teachers, while the elementary school lists 18 teachers from its preschool program through grade 3, including two for its preschool program and three for special education.
Each school also has a number of other faculty for classes such as art and physical education, plus other staff.
Melanson and Fortier said a demographics survey that the district had completed shows that enrollment, despite declining in recent years, is expected to level off soon.
Fortier said public sentiment about the facility committee’s work has largely focused around the impact on the tax rate. Although there is some sentimentality toward the elementary school, he said most residents are more concerned with maintaining the high school.
Fortier said he constantly hears that “taxes are too high, and they’re asking questions — how in the devil can we afford this? That’s a big concern for us.”
“We have to balance (the proposals) with a high tax rate that we already have, so I think it’s a very difficult process that the School Board and this committee will have to further have intimate conversations about what we think the public can afford and how best can we address the educational needs of our students and still pay for it,” Fortier said. “It all boils down to the tax dollar.”
The other two finalists considered by the committee included renovating and expanding the elementary school while making minor changes to the middle school, or closing both the elementary school and high school and consolidating everything at an expanded middle school building, according to the June minutes.
Melanson said the latter option is off the table.
“At one point, people were upset because people thought we were going to recommend closing the high school,” she said. “It’s not a recommendation, (although) it is a school that does need an infusion of money to bring it up to the code.”
Officials had aimed to get a bond vote before the voters this fall, Fortier said, but that timetable has proven unlikely and it likely will be pushed off.